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Recent Soviet Books on the History of the Secret Police

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Robert M. Slusser
Robert M. Slusser*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

Throughout its existence–barring a brief spell of uncharacteristic loquacity in its earliest years, quickly suppressed–the Soviet secret police has followed the policy of making public as little information as possible about its current activities. Terse communiques reporting the apprehension of malefactors, brief and studiously noninformative press releases concerning the punishment of enemies of the Soviet state and people–these have been the forms preferred by the secret police for its communications to the outside world.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1965 , pp. 90 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 Dzerzhinsky's “cult of personality,” which has been developing ever since his death in 1926, reached a high point in 1951, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, with the publication of a deluxe album of photographs and facsimile reproductions of documents concerning his life and career, with emphasis on his work in the party. See (Moscow, 1951), published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute. The original Polish texts of some of his letters were published in the same year. See Feliks Dzierzynski, Pisma wybrane and Listy do siostry Aldony (both Warsaw, 1951); also Feliks Dzierzynski we wspomnieniach i wypowiedziach (Warsaw, 1951). The unusual degree of attention devoted to Dzerzhinsky in 1951 was probably linked not only with the anniversary but also with the struggle for control of the secret police, which was then entering an acute phase. Dzerzhinsky embodied the principle of party control of the secret police, and emphasis on his heritage has been used more than once in an effort to strengthen or reaffirm this principle.

2 (Moscow, 1956). A shorter selection from the diary had been pub- j lished previously: (Moscow, 1939).

3 (Moscow, 1956), published in an edition of J 200, 000 copies. Numerous translations have appeared, from Ukrainian, Polish, and Lithu- 1 anian editions (1957) to Altai and Kirghiz (1960). The author is apparently not identical 1 with the P. Sofinov who published a brochure marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cheka: 1917-1942 (Moscow, 1942). j

4 (Moscow, 1957; Ukrainian translation, Kiev, > 1960). This largely supersedes Dzerzhinsky's (Moscow, 1947; German translation, Berlin, 1953). The year 1957 marked another high point in the development of the Dzerzhinsky cult, with the opening of a Dzerzhinsky Museum in Ivenets, Belorussian SSR, located 12 km. from Dzerzhinsky's birthplace. This has now become the geographical center of the cult. See (Ivenets, 1957).

5 (2d ed., Moscow, 1958; English translation, Moscow, 1959).

6 (Moscow, 1958). For an important article analyzing the materials in this volume, see , XXXIX, No. 8-9 (Aug.-Sept. 1959), 167-72. On the basis of an analysis of the sources indicated for the documents, and noting the absence of any reference to the Cheka's own archives, Mr. Nicolaevsky reached the conclusion that the volume provides confirmation of a report given him by an unidentified emigre that the archives of the Cheka were destroyed at Lenin's insistence in order to make it impossible for future historians to reconstruct the evidence for the Cheka's campaign of terrorism and for Lenin's personal part in directing it.

7 (Moscow, 1960).

8 (Moscow, 1963). I have not seen this edition.

9 (Moscow, 1960).

10 (Leningrad, 1962). See also , No. 12, 1962, pp. 46-53.

11 (Moscow, 1963). Kedrov had the distinction of being one of the secret police officials mentioned by Khrushchev in the secret speech as having been unjustly purged by Stalin.

12 (Moscow, 1962; 2d rev. ed., Moscow, 1964). I have not seen the revised edition. An extract was published in Heea, No. 12, 1957, pp. 139-45.

13 (Berlin, 1930), II, 182.

14 (Moscow, 1963). Zubov is the author of an earlier biography on the same subject: (2d ed., Moscow, 1942; I have not located the first edition).

15 (Minsk, 1961). Khatskevich has also written , No. 12, 1960, pp. 36-41.

16 (Moscow, 1962).

17 (Omsk, 1963). Also in preparation, in 1964, was a study by S. S. Khromov of Moscow University, entitled “F. E. Dzerzhinskii v Sibiri.“

18 (Moscow, 1964). Mme. Dzerzhinskaia has long been active in preserving her husband's memory by aiding in the publication of materials and studies concerning his career.